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This remark by ‘G’ posted by Iraqi blogger Salam Pax pretty much perfectly sums up why I have such contempt for most of the protestors:
Amen to that, Bro! November 21st, 2003 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
 George Monbiot has had a revelation… a few decades later than it should have been, but hey, better late than never. Having had the rare pleasure of meeting George Monbiot in the flesh, I was somewhat incredulous to read of his sudden insight that the only plausible way to end capitalism is with totalitarianism rather than caring sharing ‘democracy’:
Of course the choking weed of ‘democratic’ regulatory statism will continue to bugger up that great impersonal global capitalist wealth generation machine for quite a while yet. However in the long run Monbiot is quite right that the only way to actually kill off that protean virus-like thing called capitalism is to kill 20 or 30 million people in the developed world… and that ain’t gonna happen. Nevertheless, do not expect Monbiot to abandon his attempt to replace as many several social interactions as possible with collective political interactions any time soon (euphemistically called ‘making the world more democratic’). In many ways, his sudden realisation that he cannot wish capitalism out of existence by calling for a show of hands will make him more keen on gaming the system to achieve his ends, much the same way Ralph Nader holds himself up to be a ‘consumer advocate’ (and what could be more ‘capitalist’ that a ‘consumer’, right?) and speaking outside the tradition left wing meta-context. November 19th, 2003 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
Do not listen to the lies of those who would describe the protesters as hypocritical apologists for mass murdering fascism. Being caring, sharing people, the smiling protestors who will be marching through London to protest the visit of George Bush to Britain, will be decrying the state of unemployment in Iraq (Bush strangely seems to get no credit at all for his protectionist, anti-globalisation economic policies). The brutal, uncaring British and American capitalists now in occupation of that hapless country have, with malice of forethought, simply thrown previously industrious workers on the scrap heap of life without the slightest concern for their well being. Hundred of highly skilled ‘information retrieval’ experts that were happily at work debriefing people in every city, town and village in Iraq are now reduced to pouring through the ‘help wanted’ add in the Guardian as they look for alternative uses for their skills with pliers, blowtorches and electricity. The management and workers in the chemical industry of that once proud nation, the people who gained world fame from the use of their products in Halabja, are almost to a man reduced to flipping burgers and slicing donner kebabs or working in Syria. Is there no end to the iniquities of global capitalism? And so it is hardly surprising that the people who will be baying for Bush’s downfall were conspicuously absent on the streets in March of 1988, when Iraqi industry was humming along rather nicely producing useful products, not to feed the evil capitalist Bushist machine, but for local use in Iraq by local Iraqi people, and who could possibly object to that? 
Mother and child sleeping well thanks to better science! I mean, it must all be true, Michael Moore said so! November 17th, 2003 | 64 comments - (Comments are closed)
Over on White Rose I have put up some remarks by Josie Appleton of Spiked On-Line regarding ID Cards. To which all I can add is… yeah! And while you are at it, you might like to check out Trevor Mendham’s worthy anti-ID cards campaign on iCan.  November 15th, 2003 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
“[…] the cards do represent an attack upon the culture of liberty – upon our sense that we can do as we please within the law, and mix freely with others. What ID cards represent is a society where we are constantly having to answer for ourselves – constantly having to say who we are, to prove our identity to officialdom. They also symbolise a society where we are mistrustful of our fellow citizens. In Blunkett-world, we should only trust those who have become a member of the ID-card community, and are allowing the powers that be to keep tabs on them.” November 15th, 2003 | Comments are closed
The redoubtable Dissident Frogman has created a desktop image that spells out what a lot of us really think about the issue of mandatory National ID Cards 
click for larger image November 14th, 2003 | Comments are closed
In the comment section of David Carr‘s article here on Samizdata.net called Government Property, one of the commenters, Tim Haas, suggested the inimitable Dissident Frogman should come up with a suitable graphic… and indeed he has! 
click for larger image November 14th, 2003 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Low cost airline RyanAir is a subject that gets mixed feelings from this blog’s different contributors. Their latest problem is an EU ruling that affects their French and Belgian operations from the British Isles because the preferential rates offered to RyanAir amount to a state subsidy (funny how state subsidies to farmers do not seem to get the same response, eh?) because the airports in question are all state owned:
The solution is screamingly obvious. Privatise all the frigging airports in Belgium and France and the problem goes away! Duh. November 13th, 2003 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
As I prefer to argue matters from first principles rather than on the basis of falsely self-legitimising artefacts of state such as legal documents, I rarely discuss, much less quote, the much vaunted US Constitution. Yet I think any reasonable reading of those lines above would say that the objective at hand when it was written was to safeguard the freedom to express views, particularly political views, in any manner, so long as it was done peaceably. So I can only assume that Democratic Party Presidential wannabe Wes Clark1 takes the view that speech and press mean literally spoken word and mechanical press, and thus the Amendment does not actually refer to expression, and thus does not cover anything not literally speech or printed media produced with a honking great press, such as the Internet or anything else not literally speech or press. How else does one explain his support for prosecuting people who engage in political expression by desecrating US flags? Of course the argument often used is that burning a US flag pisses off some people in the USA so much that it is likely to cause violence. Funny how the same people who make that argument usually also oppose the same argument when it is applied to so-called ‘hate speech’… but being a left winger, I guess Wes Clark is at least being consistent in wanting political control over unpopular forms of expression unlike the more inconsistent conservative ‘hand on heart’ supporters who want to turn the US flag into an inviolate icon whilst insisting on the right to call a fag a fag and a spick a spick. 1 = British readers will be fascinated to know this is the same clown who wanted to start a shooting war between Russia and NATO in June, 1998. This is the guy who will save us from ‘that madman and threat to world peace, George Bush’. Aiyiyi… November 13th, 2003 | 36 comments - (Comments are closed)
With apologies to Bob Dylan… A welcome new addition to the blogopshere is David Smith, the economics editor for The Sunday Times. More and more well known journalists are seeing blogging as a useful adjunct to their work. Blogging is here to stay, ladies and gents. David’s latest blog article is entitled How high is the next peak in base rates?… and he started off with an article with somewhat broader appeal called George Bush’s scorched-earth economics policy. The EconomicsUK Blog promises to be a regular stop for economists, policy wonks and politicos! Welcome to the blogosphere, David!  November 12th, 2003 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has announced that it will be pressing for a ban on using technological techniques to allow parents to choose the gender of their children. The Telegraph reports:
So what we are being told is that the main reason for banning this technique is that it is distasteful to the majority of British people. Not that it is inherently bad, just that it is unpopular. This is enough for millions of people and all of government to justify the threat of violence against anyone who dares to try and order their private lives a certain way. As a result, I am wondering why when someone says something else about another widely unpopular and abominated practice, far from the Tribunes of the People leaping to book legislative time in Parliament to pass more laws, they are investigating the speaker of these words for possible criminal prosecution. Speak out against homosexuality, even though only the most purblind would claim the majority of people do not find homosexual practices really distasteful, and you will find yourself up in front of the Beak with some explaining to do. Why not just give the force of coercive law to what ‘The British Public’ think about that too? Why not lend the hammer of state to every prejudice that is widely held by ‘the people’? Next time you hear George Monbiot or Peter Hain talking about making society more democratic, I suggest you take the time to figure out what that really means. November 12th, 2003 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)
Music is a very subjective thing and so it is hard to say something is ‘good’ music without adding what that really means is that it is good for me. I had assumed for quite some years that the fact I regarded almost all the popular music I heard on the radio or TV as dismal crap was more indicative that I had reached a certain age where I was just perminently out of phase with younger tastes, rather than some sudden collective inability of the modern pop music industry to be creative… No, it had to be me. Maybe 10 years ago there was a narrow tributary off the seething mainstream that I could swim in musically, but that was clearly no longer the case. Well, maybe not. Whilst wandering past the Virgin Megastore on the King’s Road in Chelsea yesterday I heard what sounded like a rather danceable bit of vaguely sinister pop/darkwave/electronica that sucked me into the shop irresistibly. Upon asking at the desk what was being played, I was surprised to discover it was a track called Vertigo (extended mix), which is a remix of bubblegum popstress par excellence Holly Valance‘s latest song ‘State of Mind’ on a CD EP single. It sounds like Siouxsie & The Banshees (think ‘cities in dust’) being morphed with Kylie at her most virally and annoyingly catchy… yeah, yeah, I know… hard to imagine. I bought the extended play CD single and slunk out into the street worrying about the state of my ‘cred’… and have been unable to stop playing it since. Anyway, I guess it is nice to know that, circa 2003, a teen singer in a tiny skirt can front something that brings a pleasing snarl even to the lips of a doomed and jaded old geezer such as myself… plus I rather liked the delightfully arrogant and essentially meaningless video for ‘State of Mind’ on the CD. Ah the joys of Western civilisation. 
Holly does darkwave, sort of… and surprisingly well November 12th, 2003 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
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